Lakeside Ballroom · Photo: Kevin Schuchmann · CC BY-SA 3.0Household incomes in Guttenberg are lower than in 77% of U.S. towns
Guttenberg grades D for jobs and income and B+ for walkability. 24.7% of residents live below the poverty line, where Iowa as a whole has 11.1%. For 4% of workers, the job is at home, where Iowa as a whole has 11%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Guttenberg
What’s behind Guttenberg’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Guttenberg is better than 6% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Guttenberg’s grade.
Unemployment (4.6%) is left out: Guttenberg’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Guttenberg could be anywhere from D− to C−.
The kinds of work in Guttenberg
740 jobs are based in Guttenberg.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Guttenberg, 2014 → 2024: 1,056 → 740. Big swings can come from how a large employer reports its locations, not only from real openings or closings.
Primary jobs covered by unemployment insurance (not the self-employed). Pay is monthly earnings. LEHD 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Guttenberg’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How a workday changes Guttenberg
On a workday 586 residents head out to work, 181 work right here, and 559 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.96 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
7% of working residents work in Dubuque
Where Guttenberg clocks in
7% of workers
5% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Each way, about 21 minutes from Guttenberg
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Guttenberg workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 757 commuters (the 4% who work from home are left out). Across Iowa: 86% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Miles to work from Guttenberg
About 27% show a job over 50 miles away. Some of that is real, and some is employers that report every worker at a head office, so a few long commutes are on paper only.
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
For most of Guttenberg, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Guttenberg is more walkable than 72% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 5.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, on an EPA index of 7.2.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 786 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 8.9% of Guttenberg households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Guttenberg’s commuters take a bus or train.
Guttenberg is 4,763rd of 5,343 U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,400 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 1% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 136 | Van Meter IA | 1,978 | $135K | 2.6% | 1.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 142 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 163 | Ely IA | 2,366 | $106K | 2.4% | 1.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,761 | Lincoln Township MI | 1,841 | $49K | 14.8% | 5.8% | 1% | D |
| 4,762 | Pine Ridge SD | 2,246 | $53K | 14.5% | 7.9% | 8% | D |
| 4,763 | Guttenberg IA | 1,789 | $58K | 24.7% | 4.6% | 24% | D |
| 4,764 | Elkhart KS | 1,722 | $57K | 16.9% | 0.0% | 31% | D |
| 4,765 | Lone Star TX | 1,391 | $39K | 28.0% | 8.1% | 2% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,343 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 7% | D− |
Census ACS 2020–24 (income, poverty, unemployment), Census LEHD (work in town), TownRatings Jobs & income grades. Each town links to its Work & commute page.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Guttenberg, the top three, the last and three more from Iowa.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Guttenberg: questions
What is the median household income in Guttenberg?
$57,599 (±$12,424) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Guttenberg?
24.7%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Guttenberg?
21 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Guttenberg work?
24% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dubuque (7%, 29 mi), Elkader (5%, 16 mi), Garber (4%, 8 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Guttenberg walkable?
Guttenberg is more walkable than 72% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 7.2 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Guttenberg without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Guttenberg, from the people who make the trip.
More of Guttenberg
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, primary jobs. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Distances are straight lines between home and work; real drives run longer. Walkability index, job access and transit service: U.S. EPA Smart Location Database. The two grades are our own summaries of these figures, not official ratings.